High-throughput sequence analysis of variants of human cytomegalovirus strains Towne and AD169 Bradley, Amanda J. and Lurain, Nell S. and Ghazal, Peter and Trivedi, Urmi and Cunningham, Charles and Baluchova, Katarina and Gatherer, Derek and Wilkinson, Gavin W. G. and Dargan, Derrick J. and Davison, Andrew J.,, 90, 2375-2380 (2009), doi = https://doi.org/10.1099/vir.0.013250-0, publicationName = Microbiology Society, issn = 0022-1317, abstract= The genomes of commonly used variants of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) strains Towne and AD169 each contain a substantial mutation in which a region (UL/b′) at the right end of the long unique region has been replaced by an inverted duplication of a region from the left end of the genome. Using high-throughput technology, we have sequenced HCMV strain Towne (ATCC VR-977) and confirmed the presence of two variants, one exhibiting the replacement in UL/b′ and the other intact in this region. Both variants are mutated in genes RL13, UL1, UL40, UL130, US1 and US9. We have also sequenced a novel AD169 variant (varUC) that is intact in UL/b′ except for a small deletion that affects genes UL144, UL142, UL141 and UL140. Like other AD169 variants, varUC is mutated in genes RL5A, RL13, UL36 and UL131A. A subpopulation of varUC contains an additional deletion affecting genes IRS1, US1 and US2., language=, type=